Hosea 7:3

3 The Lord says, "People deceive the king and his officers by their evil plots.

Hosea 7:3 Meaning and Commentary

Hosea 7:3

They make the king glad with their wickedness
Not any particular king; not Jeroboam the first, as Kimchi; nor Jehu, as Grotius; if any particular king, rather Jeroboam the second; but their kings in general, as the Septuagint render it, in succession, one after another; who were highly delighted and pleased with the priests in offering sacrifice to the calves, and with the people in attending to that idolatrous worship, by which they hoped to secure the kingdom of Israel to themselves, and prevent the people going to Jerusalem to worship: it made them glad to the heart to hear them say that God was as well pleased with sacrifices offered at Dan and Bethel, as at Jerusalem: and the princes with their lies;
with their idols and idolatrous practices, which are vanity and a lie; though some interpret this of their flatteries, either of them, or their favourites; and of their calumnies and detractions of such they had a dislike of.

Hosea 7:3 In-Context

1 "Whenever I want to heal my people Israel and make them prosperous again, all I can see is their wickedness and the evil they do. They cheat one another; they break into houses and steal; they rob people in the streets.

2 It never enters their heads that I will remember all this evil; but their sins surround them, and I cannot avoid seeing them."

3 The Lord says, "People deceive the king and his officers by their evil plots.

4 They are all treacherous and disloyal. Their hatred smolders like the fire in an oven, which is not stirred by the baker until the dough is ready to bake.

5 On the day of the king's celebration they made the king and his officials drunk and foolish with wine.